Snoozin'

This is a sight I too often see on the way home. At about 9:15 at night, mind you, there are junior high-school students JUST coming back from school. That gym bag probably holds a ton of homework. Like, if kids have a day off, they'll go to a "cram school", which is like, extra school to stuff all the bits that you didn't pick up in class back into your head.

Kids go to cram school on holiday and on weekends. They have summer homework to do. They have extracurriculars on top of that. There are entrance exams for kindergartens nowadays, not just junior high and high schools. No wonder these kids are always snoozing on the subways! Although that's another marker of being in Japan - lone kids under the age of 13 on the subway. That's not a sight I saw much when I was in Toronto (grant you that was over a decade ago, so the times may have changed, but still)!